The Italian Carabinieri arrested a male teenager who allegedly killed his brother and parents in northern Italy late Sunday after listening on repeat to two lines of a Beatles song, according to reports.
The 17-year-old boy, identified as Riccardo, confessed to fatally stabbing his victims in Paderno Dugnano, a town in Milan, Il Messagero reported. His victims were identified as Lorenzo, 12, Daniela Albano, 49, and Fabio Chiaroni, 51, the outlet separately reported. Fabio had celebrated his birthday with his family earlier in the evening.
Riccardo initially said in an emergency call that he had killed Fabio after the latter murdered Daniela and Lorenzo. The Carabineri reportedly found him bloodied but calm and lucid—after which they then entered the villa. (RELATED: Police Warn Neighboring States Over Triple Murder Suspect On The Loose)
A 17-year-old boy from Paderno Dugnano, Italy, confessed to killing his parents & 12-year-old brother in a knife attack after celebrating his father’s birthday
The teen cited feeling “oppressed” and “like a foreign body” in his family#RIP 🙏 #TrueCrime pic.twitter.com/bTzJskrQS4
— True Crime Updates (@TrueCrimeUpdat) September 2, 2024
“I had been thinking about it for a while, it was something I had been brooding over,” the boy reportedly later confessed to the Carabineri during a tearful questioning. He also indicated a “malaise”—a confession that reportedly could prompt psychiatric evaluation.
“I thought one stab would be enough to kill, then I realised it wasn’t like that,” he reportedly told investigators, adding that he acted fast so that his victims would not suffer.
Riccardo also reportedly said that days before the murders he had been listening obsessively to the Beatles’ 1970 song “The Long and Winding Road”—particularly the lines “Many times I’ve been alone / And many times I’ve cried”, according to The Times. He also reportedly said he would have liked to fight in Ukraine.
“The boy understood that he had done something irreversible,” Sabrina Ditaranto of the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Minors told the press, according to Il Messagero.
Riccardo’s motive was unclear, Ditaranto reportedly said.
“I I felt oppressed,” Riccardo reportedly told investigators. “I felt like a foreign body in my family. I thought that by killing them all I would be free from this discomfort.”
“I realized it a minute later. I understood that it was not by killing them that I would be freed,” he reportedly added.
Riccardo was held in Beccaria juvenile prison, Il Messagero reported.
Riccardo was a model boy, studious, not a drug user, and having no disagreements with anyone, his friends reportedly told the outlet. A neighbor also reportedly said the murders were inexplicable.
The triple homicide was “beyond imagination”, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reportedly said.
